


she is here

by littleleotas



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/F, Forgiveness, Grief, You know what it is, and then not death, canon can meet me in the pit, gratuitous use of poetry, struggling with feelings, this is sad but i promise there's smooches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 11:50:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15023972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleleotas/pseuds/littleleotas
Summary: The Williams Curse takes an unexpected toll on Ashley as she grapples with loss and recovery.





	she is here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leanwellback](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leanwellback/gifts).



> My boyfriend recently played through Mass Effect for the first time and was very upset that his FemShep couldn’t romance Ashley. After Horizon he asked, “WHEN WILL ASHLEY FORGIVE ME,” which inspired me to write this.

_Places among the stars,_  
_Soft gardens near the sun,_  
_Keep your distant beauty;_  
_Shed no beams upon my weak heart._  
_Since she is here_  
_In a place of blackness,_  
_Not your golden days_  
_Nor your silver nights_  
_Can call me to you._  
_Since she is here_  
_In a place of blackness,_  
_Here I stay and wait._  
\- Stephen Crane, “Untitled [Places Among the Stars]”

 

 

The Williams Curse, as Ashley knew it, meant that a Williams would never again rise to a respectable military rank. It was not to be blamed for falling out of a tree and breaking a toe, or getting a C on a history quiz she was sure she aced, or being late to something she left on time for because she hit every single red light on the way. As far as curses go, Ashley had always figured she could have it much worse. Some people lose their firstborn to cannibal witches, some people spend 60 years in the rank of Gunnery Chief.

Ashley was beginning to suspect the Williams Curse might have more bite to it than she expected. Some might have said she was lucky, being the only survivor of the 212. She might have believed it herself for a moment, but it’s hard to feel lucky when the ghosts that wake you in the dead of night staring accusingly at you begin to grow in such numbers that you can no longer see space between them.

It was after Kaidan’s death that she began to wonder about the curse. “It should’ve been me,” she said to Shepard, almost pleading as if the situation could be changed.

Shepard looked at her with pity, which would’ve made Ashley’s blood boil except that she’d never been looked at with pity before. Disgust, meant for her grandfather but directed at her, scepticism, condescension, sure – but pity… “Are you trying to be a martyr? To redeem your grandfather’s honour?”

It didn’t seem that her grandfather was going to let her be a martyr. The Williams Curse doomed her to live, or rather, to survive, which is not the same thing. Death followed her like a black fog, poisoning everyone around her and leaving her untouched.

Losing Shepard was the final insult. Every day Ashley regretted getting into that escape pod. Every night she relived their last moments aboard the Normandy. Sometimes she shoved Shepard into the escape pod and went after Joker herself. Sometimes she simply stayed with Shepard until they were both sucked out of the Normandy and into the welcoming void. Every time she woke up gasping with tears, furious at being given another day.

The weight of the ghosts on her back became familiar enough to be borne. She was not better, she had not recovered, but she could survive. If it was all she could do, she could survive. She was assigned to the SSV Casablanca, then the SSV Edinburgh, then the SSV Victoria. Each commander gave her mumbled apologies for her losses, and each time she responded with a tight nod as she bit the inside of her cheek and hoped they wouldn’t be her next victim.

Pity welcomed from Shepard was revolting from anyone else. Perhaps it wasn’t the pity she had appreciated. Her promotion to Operations Chief didn’t feel earned; she felt she had traded the lives of the 212, Kaidan, and Shepard for it, and all-in-all it hadn’t been an even deal. Sarah joked that the Williams Curse must be letting up. Ashley didn’t have the heart to correct her.

The nightmares did not end, but she stopped waking up in tears. The sorrow did not lessen, but she managed to get through her days with composure. She had settled into a comfortable routine in her new post on Horizon, the ever-present fear that something else would happen mostly pushed to the back of her mind by the stress of colony work. Being back on a colony reminded her of Eden Prime if she left her other thoughts long enough to think about it, so she kept her mind as busy as she could.

Then the reports came in, and the barely-healed wound ripped open. Her heart leapt into her throat at the news that Shepard might be alive—and plummeted again when the report continued to say that she was working for Cerberus. After the horrific, unethical, barbaric work they had seen Cerberus do during their hunt for Saren, Ashley couldn’t believe Shepard would turn around and work for them. Had they resurrected a brainwashed clone and forced her to fight for them? It was worse than her being dead.

Somehow, all those sickening thoughts melted away when she saw her. Standing like a righteous goddess illuminated in a column of golden light, holding a smoking grenade launcher. As Ashley had seen her a thousand times before. As she never thought she would see her again.

Shepard’s hard gaze softened when her eyes met Ashley’s. She put her gun away as Ashley stepped toward her, and they looked at each other, nervously hovering on the verge of speaking. Neither of them said anything for a long moment until Ashley abruptly reached forward and hugged Shepard. She let out a deep sigh, and Shepard squeezed her as she pressed her cheek against Shepard’s shoulder. When she closed her eyes, Shepard felt like home—like the last two years hadn’t happened. She opened them again.

“I thought you were dead, Shepard. We all did.” Her voice was deep and quiet, failing to mask her uncertainty.

Shepard pulled back. Her face was a mixture of relief, confusion, and hurt. “You don’t sound happy to see me.”

Ashley eyed her warily for a moment, fighting down a cold shiver. “I don’t know if I am yet,” she replied, her voice barely above a whisper.

Shepard cast her gaze downward with a small, resigned nod. “I guess that’s fair.”

The cold shiver turned into a hot flush; Ashley wanted to raise Shepard’s face and—either kiss her or slap her, she wasn’t quite sure. She ached to see Shepard so wounded, but she was furious that Shepard could pretend that she was the victim in this. As if the Cerberus logo wasn’t emblazoned on her chest.

“We had something, Shepard,” she said, her voice wavering under the combined weight of anger and sadness. “Something real. I- I loved you. I thought you were dead. I almost—” She shook her head, letting out a sharp breath. She swallowed a hard ball of guilt down. “How could you put me through that? Why didn’t you try to contact me, why- why didn’t you let me know you were alive?”

“Ash, I was in a coma for two years. If I could’ve reached you, you know I would have. You know me,” Shepard said, fixing Ashley with a plaintive, pleading gaze.

“Do I?” Ashley spat. It was harsher than she intended, but she couldn’t bring herself to regret it.

“I’m not working for Cerberus, if that’s what you mean.” She could’ve easily been just as prickly as Ashley was, but she wasn’t. She was reassuring, kind, and patient, as if she knew Ashley would come around. It was infuriating.

“You show up here in a Cerberus ship, with the Cerberus logo on your chest, and you honestly think-“

“Ash.” Shepard took her hands, clasping them between them. “You know me.”

Something felt crushingly heavy in Ashley’s chest. She looked in Shepard’s eyes and saw nothing she didn’t recognise. It was either the sickest joke Cerberus could play or the sickest one Shepard could. Or she was telling the truth.

“I don’t know what I know anymore.”

-

Ashley knew before looking at the sender who the untitled email was from. She hovered over the terminal, unable to open the message. After a full minute of frozen silence, she huffed an annoyed sigh at herself, closed her inbox, and left the room.

Twenty minutes later she returned and opened the message without hesitation.

From: Cmdr A. Shepard  
To: Op. Chief A. Williams

_April this year, not otherwise_  
_Than April of a year ago,_  
_Is full of whispers, full of sighs,_  
_Of dazzling mud and dingy snow;_  
_Hepaticas that pleased you so_  
_Are here again, and butterflies._

_There rings a hammering all day,_  
_And shingles lie about the doors;_  
_In orchards near and far away_  
_The grey wood-pecker taps and bores;_  
_The men are merry at their chores,_  
_And children earnest at their play._

_The larger streams run still and deep,_  
_Noisy and swift the small brooks run_  
_Among the mullein stalks the sheep_  
_Go up the hillside in the sun,_  
_Pensively,—only you are gone,_  
_You that alone I cared to keep._

The hot, bitter tears Ashley hadn’t felt in months made an unwelcome reappearance as Ashley ran to her bed, clasping a hand over her mouth to stifle her sobs.

-

The cat in the box was alive and it was dead. Ashley stood on solid ground, and she fell through the darkness of a bottomless hole. Shepard had returned, and Shepard was gone.

Ashley never responded to the email, but it never left her mind. Shepard had to be real, to have remembered. It had to be her. But no one working for Cerberus could really be her. No one would save humanity just to sacrifice their own. When she was thinking about it, she couldn’t make sense of it. Undesirably often she found herself not thinking about it, but feeling about it, and that she couldn’t bear. Her heart refused to listen to her head and simply thrummed with incandescent joy, whispering _she is here, she is here._ Somehow the joy didn’t make her feel joyous.

She kept a search alert for news with Shepard’s name, as though it might have the answers. Ashley knew better than to trust the news, but the alert remained. Nothing more than the usual gossip, rumours, things she already knew or could reasonably guess. Seeing Shepard’s name in her inbox, no matter what the news, felt like seeing a flicker of light in the distance. It wasn’t something to hold onto, exactly, but something more than nothing.

Eventually, a message about Shepard surrendering to Alliance custody dropped into her inbox. Her vision crossed as she looked without understanding at the words on the screen. She managed to click into the message. Shepard was on Earth, at an Alliance base in Vancouver, awaiting trial. She surrendered herself. That might have meant something. Or it might not. The light in the distance still flickered.

Shepard and the Normandy were officially grounded on the same day Ashley was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. Ashley declined the invitation to receive honours in Vancouver. She wasn’t sure why. She felt untethered and uneasy, somehow always hovering above the world but never finding her feet underneath her. She expected to wake up from this dream any day now, and be back on Eden Prime with Nirali and Bates beside her in the bunks.

Anderson called her to Vancouver. She forgot the reason he gave as soon as he said it. The reason was likely fabricated anyway; they both knew why he wanted her there and it had nothing to do with him or any Alliance duties. She wasn’t sure if Shepard had said anything to Anderson in the six months she’d been in lock-up, but likely, she hadn’t had to. If Ashley didn’t know better, she’d think Anderson was a mind-reader. One look at you and it seemed like he read you down to the bone.

Ashley tried to ignore the magnetic pull of Shepard’s gaze as she approached her and Anderson. She tried to ignore the way Shepard said her name like a fluttering, wounded bird, hopeful and scared and _trying_. She tried to ignore the way the air seemed to be sucked out of the room when she tried to say more than Shepard’s name.

“You know the Commander?” Lieutenant Vega asked as she watched Shepard walk away.

“I used to,” she lied. She wanted to be angry and bitter and resentful, she wanted to shun this impostor who wore Shepard’s skin, she wanted to be left alone in her grief mourning a person who had never seen her rise above Gunnery Chief. Her heart knew, beyond a doubt, that Shepard was real, she was alive, and she was there. Ashley wished she didn’t know.

She tried to be bitter as they raced through the Mars archives, only to have Shepard be firm yet patient with her, as she had always been. Shepard had always been understanding in their disagreements, enduringly gentle when Ashley gave her every reason to snap. There had never been anything Ashley could say that would drive Shepard away. She just waited. She waited for Ashley to learn to let down her walls, to love and understand and appreciate what Shepard had always seen in front of her. She waited for Ashley to forgive her, when Ashley steadfastly refused to ever do so. Ashley was beginning to realise Shepard had always been standing still while she ran erratic circles around her, trying to be and not be all manner of things.

Ashley’s last thought before Dr. Eva smashed her head against the shuttle was that she had wasted so much time.

She awoke in the hospital with a book of Tennyson’s poems on the table next to her. There was no inscription inside, but she knew who had left it. One page was dog-eared, and Ashley turned to it.

_‘In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours,_  
_Faith and unfaith can ne’er be equal powers:_  
_Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all._

_‘It is the little rift within the lute,_  
_That by and by will make the music mute,_  
_And ever widening slowly silence all._

_‘The little rift within the lover’s lute_  
_Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit,_  
_That rotting inward slowly moulders all._

_‘It is not worth the keeping: let it go:_  
_But shall it? answer, darling, answer, no._  
_And trust me not at all or all in all’._

It was this that ran through her mind when Shepard and her squad exited the lift instead of the expected Cerberus troops. _She is here,_ her heart whispered, and the usual bitter hiss of the voice in her head whispering _Cerberus,_ was drowned out by Tennyson’s words in Shepard’s voice, _Trust me not at all or all in all._ She had once told Shepard that Williams women don’t do things until they’re ready. It seemed she finally was.

She waited in the Normandy docking bay, alternating leaning with feigned nonchalance against the railing and pacing, wringing her hands nervously. After what seemed like hours, the door opened and Shepard stepped through.

“Ash,” she smiled warmly.

_She is here,_ the dual voice of her heart and head in unison said with a sigh.

Ashley pulled Shepard forward by the front of her shirt into a kiss. She hadn’t realised how far into the dark she had gone until she saw the light behind her closed eyes that kissing Shepard had always brought. It was like kissing sunlight, warm and gentle and comforting. She pulled back and felt her cheeks hurt with the unfamiliar shape of a smile spreading across her face. She felt foolish, but couldn’t bring herself to stop while Shepard was returning her smile. There were words that needed to be said, probably, but Ashley couldn’t think of them. For now, she kissed Shepard again, and again, as though she had nothing else to do but be here.

**Author's Note:**

> Poems quoted are, in order, “Song of a Second April” by Edna St. Vincent Millay and “Vivien’s Song” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
> 
> I’m on Tumblr at verhexen/avelakjar if you want to come say hi!


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